#1

Continuing the discussion from MPE/touch controller options?:

The traditional way to get round the GPL is to have an external process and communicate with it via a pipe / network socket / etc. I not sure Iā€™d advocate it though, as itā€™s not really in the spirit of the license.

Reverse engineered VST headers apparentlyā€¦

Ardour now uses the Vestige header file to allow compilation with VST support on Linux. We believe, given the reverse engineering of the Vestige header, that there is no more need to fetch the VST SDK from Steinberg in order to build Ardour with VST support, and it is possible to distribute all source code associated with VST support. This means that distributions are free to compile and release packages of Ardour with VST support. Linux Packagers: please do not call such packages ā€œArdourā€. They should always be named in a way to make it clear that they contain VST support - Ardour with VST support is not actually a Linux program at all (its a small Windows executable that is linked against some Linux libraries, run by a shell script that invokes Wine). It is critical that users have the choice to install 1 or the other (or both, if possible). To repeat, Ardour with VST support should not be packaged as ā€œArdourā€. I suggest ā€œArdourVSTā€ (or ardourvst, for the case-insensitive). Please note: VST is a trademark of Steinberg Soft- und Hardware GmbH.

source

More info

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#2

Yeah been reading up about GPL/VSTā€¦
seems Julian @ JUCE basically said its not in their interest to chase this, its good that JUCE is used for lots of open source VSTs etcā€¦
( I dont think many use the reverse engineered headers)

yeah, splitting up your ā€˜modulesā€™ as you say, seems be ok , if not in the spirit.

I do get why GPL is as it is, to ā€˜encourageā€™ sharing of complete source trees, but I wonder in these kind of cases if its not counter-productiveā€¦ its basically all or nothing and its only end-users that loose outā€¦ your allowed to share the source for something thats not full gpl , just not publish a binary.
and we are talking ā€˜for freeā€™ here, so no talk of someone making money off a derivative product.

ā€¦ as for the idea it will ā€˜forceā€™ companies to release source, that policy doesnā€™t seem to be working with Steinberg :slight_smile:

Ive approached Eigenlabs about it - nothing insurmountable, but definitely food for thought.
(as I say for ā€˜developersā€™ its a non issue, they can build the code , gpl cannot stop that - Iā€™m more concerned how to deal with it for musicians who cannot do this for themselves)

#3

I dunno at the end of the day you have to respect the original programmer that wrote a piece of code and what they want you to (or not to) do with a piece of code. If they wanted the path youā€™ve described they would have chosen the MIT / BSD / Apache license instead.

It seems to me that there are the 2 schools of thought on the GPL, the ā€˜user freedomā€™ view of the FSF and Stallman, and the developer centric view of Linus Torvalds. Each of us that releases (or contributes to) GPL code does it for one or both of these.

The source for the Monome modules are all GPL (not sure of the version), possibly in part due to the code originating from the Aleph source code. @tehn and @zebra why did you choose the GPL?

On the previous thread you mentioned that Eigenharp production had basically stopped, is that definitely the case?

I think Iā€™m going to have a think over Christmas before deciding if I want to get a secondhand Pico. Iā€™ll see if I can get picodump.cpp compiled too (due diligence and allā€¦)

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#4

thats interestingā€¦ do you have something that I can read more on thisā€¦

Iā€™ll be honest, Im an active ā€˜open sourceā€™ developer, and I do it for end-users, and frankly some parts of GPL, and open source are causing me ā€˜issuesā€™, almost driving me away from contributingā€¦
so Id love to hear more about ā€˜the other sideā€™ ( and frankly, Im not even sure which ā€˜sideā€™ Im on!)

no, not ā€˜definitely the caseā€™ - just a user impression, Iā€™ve not seen them marketing, so thats my assumption - I donā€™t have any information - they did an alpha run last year, I think they have stock of pico/tau ( they are shown in stock on their site) but Ive no idea if they are making more or not. perhaps its just ā€˜low keyā€™ now.
however, they are not actively developing the software, so doesnā€™t seem like an ā€˜active productā€™ to me :wink:

#5

well, in aleph, avr32 code is CC-A-SA (share-alike with attribution) and blackfin code has the Unlicense (totally open.)

(the reason is, hm, harder to articulate :crystal_ball: )

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#6

It sounds like youā€™re more in the BSD camp, youā€™re happy to open source your code, but you donā€™t mind what people do with it.

Itā€™s important to look at the glass being half full rather than half empty when it comes to the GPL. Donā€™t think about what you canā€™t do, but instead think about all the things we do get. Is there something specific thatā€™s causing you problems?

I donā€™t know that I do. There is the GNU philosophy page, itā€™s worth understand their stance, even if you donā€™t agree with it. Iā€™d say they are at one extreme of the open source spectrum.

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